Here's my thoughts...
- While it's too late to go back now, as a first time grower, you chose a very difficult training method. There's a reason that manifolding is considered a more advanced technique and you're experiencing in real time why that is. Manifolding requires a lot of high stress training and that means a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong. When you stress your plant via training, especially when it is high stress, it is essential that all of your other factors are perfectly dialed in like temps/humidity/watering/ventilation/circulation/lighting/nutrients/etc. We don't say that manifolding is an advanced technique just to keep the rewards to ourselves, we tell new growers that for a reason....to save them the heartache and difficulties you're experiencing. My advice for your next grow: do some low stress training that is minimal. Maybe just top the plant once and work with tying the branches down, etc. This will allow you to learn how the plant grows, how it reacts to different inputs, etc. with fewer variables. It will also help you make sure you have your environment perfectly dialed in.
- Next: those buds don't look like Week 3 of flower and I say that for several reasons. 1) your buds are way fatter than they would be at 3 weeks of flower. 2) many of the pistils are orange/amber and starting to curl in. 3) Northern Lights tend to take 8+ weeks of flower time. And 4) the look of the plant is 'fading' which is what usually happens a couple of weeks before harvest time. Additionally, your buds have lots of sugar on their sugar leaves and unless you have some sort of magic power, it's extremely unusual to see that many trichomes at 3 weeks of flower. Now, it's not impossible that you're at week 3, however it's improbable.
- If you are indeed at week 3, then you're going to have a very difficult time getting to harvest. You're going to have to nurse them along with careful watering and as previous posters have mentioned, maybe some nitrogen but be cautious with doing anything sudden or extreme to them.
- I just realized, you might be counting weeks of flower from the time you saw the first buds? That could explain the look of the plant (the fading colors), the amber pistils, and all the trichomes as that would put you around week 5 or 6 from the flip to 12/12 lighting. If this is the case, then pat yourself on the back, you've done a great job and you should look at the trichomes under a loupe to see if they're cloudy to see how close you are to harvest. If you are in week 5 or 6, your plants are doing exactly what they should be doing.
- Lastly, defoliation is also pretty high stress. One plant does look like it was defoliated more than the other. I grow organic and I'm a proponent of light defoliation in organic grows and from what I understand with synthetic grows, you can be pretty aggressive. Just make sure not to go too crazy all at once as you can always take more leaves off but you can't put them back on. You also will need to be attentive to when you remove the leaves as removing them too early or too late can impact the health of the plant as well as your harvest.
Overall, I think you're not at week 3 and you're closer to week 5 or 6. If that's the case, you have nothing to worry about, just enjoy the final stages of your plants and look forward to a bountiful harvest! They look great for that stage! If you are certain you're at week 3, you're going to have to baby them for the next month+ to get them to harvest. Keep an eye on the trichomes as many other factors that indicate harvest are showing that they're getting close to being ready for the chop.
Keep us posted!
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